MADRID, 16 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Swedish Perseus Karlström and the Chinese Shenjie Qieyang were crowned this Monday the winners of the first edition of the Gran Premio Madrid Marcha LaLiga, held on a 10-kilometre circuit on the Gran Vía and corresponding to the World Athletics walking circuit in its category of Prayed.
On a festive day in which ‘Chuso’ García Bragado received his ‘Marca Leyenda’ award for his extensive sports career, the 80 participants launched into the adventure while the Czech Michal Morvay, with a first partial of 3:59, and the Chinese Jun Zhang were in the lead.
In the second of the ten laps of the circuit, Karlström, bronze in 20 kilometers in the 2019 World Championship, opened a gap of three seconds over the chasing group, where the Spanish Diego García Carrera was and from which the Olympic champion had dropped in Tokyo, the Italian Massimo Stano.
The Swede was hunted after the third passage through the finish line, and everyone passed the halfway point of the test in 19:25. In the sixth kilometer, García Carrera, also the organizer of the event, took the lead, but Karlström snatched the lead from him on the penultimate lap, crossing the finish line in 38:42.
Diego García entered seven seconds behind the Scandinavian (38:49) and Brazilian Caio Bonfim was third (39:13). For his part, Marc Tur, fourth in Tokyo, had to stop in the ‘pit lane’ already in the last kilometer and was seventeenth (40.49), and Paul McGrath finished sixth (39:30).
In the women’s event, Shenjie Qieyang did not disappoint and took the victory. At the start of the event, with the first two kilometers covered in 4:24 each, the Peruvian Kimberly García, the Spanish Laura García-Caro, Qieyang and the Ecuadorian Magaly Bonilla positioned themselves at the front, gradually increasing their pace to overcome half of the route with a time of 21:43.
It was then that the Chinese woman, who will soon be recognized as Olympic champion in London 2012 after the winner was disqualified, escaped to finish first (43:07) ahead of Kimberly García (43:37) and García-Caro (43 :fifty).